Ruben Ã–stlund, a Swedish man without formality

Votes

Ruben Ã–stlund sees the cinema as "a study of human behaviour ". Play proposes
a game to us . It teaches us up to what
extent human beings feel intimidated when questioning the rules. The actual event the film is based on interested
the Swedish director because "the fiveblack boys that robbed the white boys
used a rhetorical trap, but no violence
at all ."

At the same time, this is also an exercise about the effect that
stereotypes have on the mind maps that
people build to make their own reality
more comprehensive.

Ã–stlund pointed out the way in which young people committed the crime : "they
used the image of the black man", which exists in society as a weapon of
intimidation. The director recalled how,after the premiere of Play at Cannes, a
reporter questioned him about his
"prejudices " against black people. "When
an individual from a group does
something wrong, people belonging to
other groups tend to generalize that
behaviour," he said. The filmmaker,
always struggling to avoid formality in
his proposal, stressed that "while the
economic and social imbalance"
perpetuate, the idea of some boys of a
certain race robbing others belonging to
a different one will continue to becontroversial.